"What are you making?" I asked her, idly.
She exhibited the very feminine garment: exquisitely embroidered and sewn with the most exact and even of tiny stitches.
"I wish I could sew like that," I said, enviously, "but I should think you would ruin your eyes."
She raised to mine the tremendous pools of liquid darkness in question.
"But no," she said. "All Spanish girls are clever with the needle. The Sisters taught me when I was very young."
I had been, with the Howells, to one of the convents near Havana, and I recalled now the sweet, patient faces of the nuns, and the marvelous work they showed us. Some of it lay in one of my trunks now, a present to Mrs. Goodrich from Bill and me. The thought of Mercedes behind the austere cloister walls was incongruous.
"Were you long with the nuns?" I asked her.
"Seven years," she answered, and then, amazingly, "I was very happy there—for a long time I wanted to take the veil, but Father was simply horrified at the idea."
I was somewhat horrified myself.
"I can't imagine it," I said flatly.